Lucy Potter will receive the Charles J. Parker Legal Services Award at the CBA’s annual awards celebration, Celebrate with the Stars, on Wednesday, April 3.
Attorney Potter served as a lawyer at Greater Hartford Legal Aid (GHLA) for thirty-eight years with a focus on representing individuals in disputes with the Department of Social Services over eligibility for cash and medical benefits and child support services. She also lobbied and litigated over issues that arose during representation and through other means, helping to reshape the way the Department of Social Services assists its beneficiaries, thereby providing improved access to crucial benefits for GHLA clientele and others throughout the state.
After receiving her law degree from the University of Connecticut School of Law in 1984, Attorney Potter passed the Connecticut bar and was hired as a staff attorney for GHLA, then known as the Legal Aid Society of Hartford. In her early years she practiced housing and consumer law, later focusing on public benefits issues. As part of her work, she participated in outreach to community groups, shelters, and churches within Hartford and its surrounding communities.
In 1990 Connecticut Governor Lowell Weicker appointed Attorney Potter to the Child Support Guidelines Commission. She continued to serve on renewed versions of the commission for over three decades. In this capacity she preserved institutional continuity between commissions and helped to shape low-income provisions such as the self-support reserve and treatment of informal families. Attorney Potter also participated in numerous working groups over the years, including the Connecticut Fatherhood Initiative and the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families Oversight Council.
Attorney Potter has been a leading advocate in drafting and implementing state and federal benefits legislation. She has also taken on the role of educator, freely sharing knowledge with others as well as training and mentoring countless legal aid attorneys across the state.
The Charles J. Parker Legal Services Award is presented to a member of the Connecticut Bar who has a deep and abiding interest in and dedication to the delivery of legal services to the disadvantaged in Connecticut.
View the full list of this year’s awardees.
Register for the 2024 Celebrate with the Stars.
View sponsorship and advertising opportunities for the event.